to know something more of the Bible than they do? Would it not help them to prepare themselves for the end, which must be coming soon upon them, aud may be coming ever so soon? Is it not a good thing and a happy thing to see the old man and the old woman who can do little else, yet find their way to church, and say their prayers day by day? And there are others besides the very old :—people who if not always, yet sometimes, are at leisure for so short a time in the forenoon, and who would do very well and wisely to come and join with us when they can in our good and sober worship. The church is open-the bell rings-the service is short-do you not think that if people were in great earnest to serve God, they would sometimes find or make the half hour's leisure, which would enable them to take their part in our good prayers? I will tell you one or two plain benefits that they would gain by it. First of all, they would pray,—and that at a time when otherwise they would, I suppose, certainly not be praying. Then they would hear two chapters of the Bible read. Now observe, brethren, most people know very little of the Bible; very little indeed. But nearly the whole of the Old Testament is read through in the course of the daily Lessons in a year, and the whole of the Old Testament, except the Book of Revelation, is read through three times. Now, if a person brought his Bible with him to church, and followed with his eye as well as with his ear the clergyman reading the Lessons, would he not come to know a great deal more about the blessed Bible, and all its various contents, than he does now? It seems to me that besides the actual words he heard, he would be interested often to read on, and wish to learn, and make inquiry, and come to be a much better instructed Christian than a great many of us are. Again, there are the Psalms, the precious Psalms. Is it not wholesome and good to read and say these Psalms; and should we be likely to read and say them if we did not come to church? And I think that a great benefit would come from daily attendance in this respect; that people would not be so shy of taking their own part aloud in these parts of the service which belong to them. It is melancholy often to hear the silence of the greater part of the congregation in a full church; in recited psalm, in versicle, in amen, and in the musical hymns. We do not wish that the work of the congregation should devolve upon one. We wish the whole church to speak,-loudly, clearly, in good earnest. Do you remember what I told you early in this sermon, that the real words of the Lord's promise in the original language are not, when two of you shall N agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, -but when two of you shall speak aloud together concerning anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of My Father which is in Heaven? Then again, I think that if people came to church in the forenoon of a week-day, and really prayed, they would find themselves much helped to keep up a Christian mind during the day. You could hardly rise up from prayer,—from real prayer, mark you,—and go back straightway to sin, to dishonesty, to evil language, to malice, or to other sorts of wickedness. And I also think that you would feel yourselves bound more closely and nearly in all brotherly kindness to your fellowworshippers. There is no bond in ordinary life so strong as that which rises from joint worship: when people have knelt side by side to confess their sins, when they have listened together to the voice of God's mercy and pardon, when they have joined their voices in prayer, when they know that their hearts are together in all sacred wishes and intentions, when they feel assured that they shall meet together in heaven because they meet so constantly and happily together upon the earth in God's visible church, which is the type of heaven. There is a great danger lest, as things are now, we come to forget God from Monday to Saturday,―as though once a week it were quite enough to remember Him, while all the rest of the time might well be given to all sorts of other thoughts and things, ever so unlike to what He loves and wills. And I need hardly tell you that if a man forgets God from Monday to Saturday, the remembering Him on Sunday is apt to become a very cold and irksome thing, which he escapes when he can, and which is hardly likely to do him much good, even if he continues to observe it. Finally,—I think that if we had more worshippers at daily prayers, we should soon find that we had more communicants at the Lord's Table. The two things go together in great degree. One who is earnest to pray when he can with his brethren, is sure to be earnest to partake in that Holy Feast which binds him to the Head and to the Body of his Lord; which brings him nearer than anything else in this world to Christ, making him one with Christ, and Christ with him, keeping him in his own blessed place as a stone in the Temple of the Lord, and a member in His Body which is the Church. Meanwhile, if it please God, the bell will continue to ring, and the daily prayers to be offered, and perhaps, by the grace of God, our little morning congregation may sometimes be enlarged by old people who wish to come near to God, and not forget Him as their time draws |